- Posts: 192
- Joined: 11 May 2012
From the Wikipedia ...
The defining characteristics of mythomania are:The stories told are not entirely improbable and often have some element of truth. They are not a manifestation of delusion or some broader type of psychosis: upon confrontation, the teller can admit them to be untrue, even if unwillingly.
Mythomania may also present as false memory syndrome, where the sufferer genuinely believes that fictitious events have taken place, regardless that these events are fantasies. The sufferer may believe that he or she has committed superhuman acts of altruism and love.
The fabricative tendency is long lasting; it is not provoked by the immediate situation or social pressure as much as it is an innate trait of the personality.
A definitely internal, not an external, motive for the behavior can be discerned clinically.
The stories told tend toward presenting the liar favorably. For example, the person might be presented as being fantastically brave, knowing or being related to many famous people.
If the someone suffering from mythomania can admit their lies and exaggeration are untrue, "even if unwillingly", then that counts out the BKs because they cannot. It seems Lekhraj Kirpalani lived with the delusion until after he died.
Delusions of grandeur is a subtype of delusional disorder that occurs in patients suffering from a wide range of mental illnesses including half of those with schizophrenia. They are characterized by fantastical beliefs that one is famous, omnipotent, wealthy, or otherwise very powerful.
The delusions are generally fantastic and typically have a supernatural, science-fictional, or religious theme.
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder distinguished by a loss of contact with reality and the occurrence of psychotic behaviors, including hallucinations and delusions (unreal beliefs which endure even when there is contrary evidence).
Delusions may include that the person’s thoughts are being broadcast for others to listen to, and auditory hallucinations such as hearing voices.
Specifically, grandiose delusions are frequently found predominantly in paranoid schizophrenia, in which a person has an extremely exaggerated sense of his or her significance, personality, knowledge, or authority. For example, the person may possibly declare the belief that they are Jesus Christ.
Sounds familiar? If Lekhraj Kirpalani was born in the West, he would probably have ended up having mental health treatments, instead they have turned him into a god and indulged in a "folie à plusieurs", a madness shared by two or more.
A non-BK who knew Lekhraj Kirpalani around the time when he was about to manifest "Shiva" (in the early 1950s, not 1936) said that Lekhraj Kirpalani used to say that he "had thoughts which were not his own" and would, in the middle of conversation, just 'shut down' in an eccentric manner (possibly in "deep thought" but who knows) at which point the other would know to just leave him.
Folie imposée is where a dominant person (known as the 'primary', 'inducer' or 'principal') initially forms a delusional belief during a psychotic episode and imposes it on another person or persons (known as the 'secondary', 'acceptor' or 'associate') with the assumption that the secondary person might not have become deluded if left to his or her own devices.
If the parties are admitted to hospital separately, then the delusions in the person with the induced beliefs usually resolve without the need of medication.